Talking to Plants and Seeing People's Hearts
by animeandtrash
Summary: They don't expect something pretty to be able to harm and maim so she has the upper hand. she will use that to her advantage. Three days before Uchiha Itachi is put under a genjutsu and kills half his own people Sakura's clan gets massacred leaving her the sole survior. OR Sakura befriends Zetsu who teaches her how to talk to plants and she learns truths about those she loves
1. Chapter 1

She blinks and then they were gone.

Not went-to-the-store gone, not moved-out-of-sight gone, it was there-now-is-not.

Dead.

She was picking flowers like she normally did only she wandered a bit too far and didn't notice how the sun dipped lower from its place in the sky but she couldn't help it for she was searching for a specific flower, the flower that she was going to find that day no matter what. She was a bright child and devoted much of her time looking at different flowers, learning their meanings and what they could be used for then show her Okasan all the knowledge she had on them.

She had thought that when she got home her Okasan would scold her, " _Sakura you've got dirt everywhere."_ She'd fuss at her face with a cloth to get some of it off then she'd sigh and ask, " _did you get anything good?"_ Then Sakura would have shown her Okasan the beautiful blue violet flowers that she picked, _their aconite Okasan_ , she would tell her with a proud smile.

She was not expecting to come home to a silent house and a smell that reminded her of the time she sliced her knees and palms up will learning to climb a tree, a musty copper scent that she knew immediately was _bad bad bad_. Her small feet made little sound on the carpet floor as she made her way to the kitchen, she was not prepared for what she saw.

Her parent's bodies lay side by side each other on their backs with their blood mixing together in what was like an ocean to Sakura. There was so much blood, she never knew that a person had that much inside them, it's too much for her to fathom. She has a fleeting thought that her Okasan would have a fit if she saw this mess, would probably cruse that she just cleaned then as fast as the thought was there it left leaving her with the horrific fact that her parents were murdered.

She walks one foot at a time until she is standing in between them at the base of their feet, she drops to her knees uncaring that she is getting blood on her, _her parents blood_ her mind reminds her.

"Otou-san?" He is pale more tile white then his normal honey glow, she reaches down to hold his hand and finds it still warm. His green eyes – the same ones she has when she looks in the mirror – are half closed as if he's just going to sleep.

She heard a slight noise to her other side, a sharp breath in, and she quickly turns to see her Okasan is still breathing. She grips her hand in hers, "Okasan, Okasan, Okasan." It is a prayer that falls out of her mouth in little whispers.

 _(She was going to tell her Okasan all about the aconite flower, how it was also called wolfsbane and how it means be cautious and oh she should have known)_

Her Okasan's eyes are open and she looks at Sakura all sea blue to her pale green. There is a faint twitch in her fingertips just a brush of a squeeze and she half says or maybe half exhales "Saku-" then she is gone too with the time it took Sakura to blink and she is left alone with only soft sobs to keep her company with her parent's ghosts.

(|||)

That's how they find her; covered in blood sitting next to her parent's corpse's in her empty house with their cold dead hands in hers. They move in quietly around her but she knows they are there, she can feel the floor boards echo their movements the second they were in the house. She thinks them odd with their porcelain masks shaped in different animal's likeness, they are more doll like then human to her.

 _(She remembers a flower by the name of iberis with pretty white petals, also referred to_ _as candytuft_ _an odd name for they mean indifference)_

Someone with a weasel like mask picks her up and brings her outside to the front lawn where there is other people, they set her down on the ground and she struggles to resist the urge to hold on to them. They are alive and warm and not cold with death. Someone else puts a blanket around her and then a man in a red robe is standing in front of her.

He tells her that her whole clan in dead but does not give her any details as to what happened.

( _they won't ever tell you because you're just a dumb little kid_ her mind seethes)

She does not say anything just sits there thinking about her uncles and aunts and cousins and all the other Haruno's that were there and then in a blink their all gone. In a hushed tone he says _I'm sorry for your loss._ Sakura looks up at him from underneath her wet pink lashes and her dirt hair his face is old and tired and sad.

She is the only one that survived and that's probably only because she was out picking flowers which she just remembers are still in her pocket. She reaches down and pulls out a daisy from among the other green steamed plants, holds it out for the man who told her that everyone she has ever known is dead and says, "Daisies were the first flowers that I knew the name of because they were Okasan's favorite." He slowly reaches down to take the now blood-stained plant and when he does she speaks again, "Thank you for telling me." She bows because her Okasan taught her that was the polite thing to do then wraps herself tighter into the blanket and makes herself small.

Sakura is alone and she wished that whoever killed her family had also killed her as well.

(|||)

The following days are a blur, she supposes that she was taken away and brought to the hospital to be looked at after she passed out on the ground. From the stiffness in her body she thinks it must have been a long time unconscious.

She's in the Konoha hospital in a room by herself in a white bed. She can hear feet scuffle down the hallway outside her room but no one comes in. she can hear someone say, "it's such a shame what happened to that clan. Their gonna have to have such a big funeral for all of them."

Sakura assumes that they are talking about her and thinks about telling them that she too feels that she is among the dead before she once again fades into a dreamless sleep.

(|||)

She is wrong she discovers when she wakes up again. They were not talking about her they were talking about the Uchiha. It seems that during the three days that she spent asleep in the hospital that Itachi Uchiha, the heir, was put under a jutsu that compelled him to kill his clan. He murdered about half of his own family before he was subbed.

Sakura learns through listening to the gossip that the nurses say while she pretends to be asleep that she knows one of the survivors as a raven hair boy in her class at the academy.

As the sun works its way down the sky to sleep she gets a visitor. It is the same man with the red robes who told her that her family is dead. Now out of shock she recognizes that the man is the Hokage.

She slowly sits up on the hospital bed and watches as the older man walks to stand by her feet. "I see you're awake now." His voice rumbles over the stillness and she nods at his question. "When your well and discharged you will be place in the orphanage" he says in a gentle tone, "you can remain in the academy if you wish."

Sakura does not want to go to the orphanage where there will be other children in a small building and with not enough adults watching every moment of everyday. No, she will not go so she asks the Third if she can remain of the Haruno compound, she is old enough to take care of herself and does not need to be taken anywhere.

It takes a little convincing for him to give in, he is a busy man and a predominate clan has just been half massacred – what is her small clan compared to the grand Uchiha? – he does not have time to waste on arguing with a pink haired girl. Besides he looked at her academy records and she is the top of her class, a genius in her own right and she will do fine on her own he tells himself.


	2. Chapter 2

PART TWO:

After she leaves the hospital and The Third agrees to let her live on her own she wanders at the edge of village not that far from her clan compound. It's here among the flowers and grasses and trees that finally allows her to choke back fresh air and finally _breathe_. She does not feel that she is the same Sakura her mother named her anymore, doesn't think she will ever be like before.

Out of the corner of her eye she spots movement and wanders over that way. It could be any number of things a squirrel or a bear or a rabbit. She peered into the woods at the tree line and said a soft "Hello?"

Half-shadow and half-light are the first thing Sakura registers when she comes face to face with the being known as Zetsu. The instant that she is trapped underneath his gaze she is under no illusions that he has the power to kill her at any moment. It didn't really bother her, either way she was already dead or at least the Sakura from before was dead and the Sakura from after was just a cheap imitation.

"You're not scared of us? **Most people are afraid of us** _._ " There are two different voices, two different personalities speaking.

She supposes that she should fear this creature and most children her age would be, but she has seen her parent's corpses and heard her mother's last breath, nothing will ever truly scare her again.

So, she settles for speaking the truth because her Okasan taught her that lying is unkind and to go against her teachings now feels like a betrayal on her tongue. "No, I'm not scared." She speaks softly looking the being in his two different colored eyes because without a doubt he is not human but something other.

Sakura can see that this being is lonely, sees this because she to is lonely and lonely things seem to have a way of knowing each other, although she does not think he even realizes this himself, she doesn't even think he know what that feeling is.

(she doesn't really understand why but just like how her name is Sakura and the grass at her feet is green she knows this creature in a way unknown to others)

She takes out a flower she had picked not that far away and held it out towards him, "This is for you, I'll leave it right here." She laid it down into the soft green grass in the space between them. It is a compulsion that makes her do this, some part of her wanting to reach out to someone like her to be near someone that is not cold and _dead_ _dead_ _dead_ _._

He makes no move to reach for it but studies it with his eyes. "It is a **Geraniums flower.** "

She smiles at him and it's not all fake, "it means friendship." She's never met anyone who knows flowers names.

"You're an interesting girl." She's been called worse, like billboard brow from the kids and annoying whispered from the adults all meant to belittle her, it doesn't really bother her anymore. So, she just smiles at him. " **A strange child to be smiling at us** _."_

"My names Sakura." She waits for him to tell him his but when he doesn't move to talk she asks shyly, "what's your name?"

"I'm white Zetsu!" His voice was the lighter of the two, " **I am black Zetsu**." The second voice is deeper rougher.

 _So, he really is two different people then_ a voice says in her head. "Do you want to be," she shuffles her feet on the grass "friends?" She hasn't had any friends besides the other kids in her clan but now they're all dead and she is alone.

They look at her and tilt their head. "Strange **strange** girl." They say to her. It takes a while after that but both Zetsu's agree to be her friend and she is all grins and grabs Black Zetsu's hand and leads both to her favorite place.

"Come on I want to show you something beautiful." It's not far just across the field she was playing in and she wants to show her new friends the place that feels more home then her own body.

It's a secluded meadow tucked in behind some tall trees, it was full of colorful flowers grown taller and brighter in some cases than average plants, with lush grass and moss sweeping on the floor like a living sea of green. It was a wonder to see and if he liked flowers even half as much as she did he would like this place as well.

(|||)

After that Sakura spends all her free time with Zetsu, they meet in the forest where they first crossed paths, she doesn't have anyone to go home to, so she often spends whole days and nights with her new friend. She shows him the little ants that live in the dirt beside a growing tree her grandfather planted and the small river that snakes its way through the dense forest where the trout swim is silver streams, all her secret places she has never shown anyone; things that are beautiful only to beings like her and Zetsu, the things that grow and die and create something extraordinary.

He starts to teach her the language of plants, how to read nature energy and translate that into words she can understand, it opens the door to better understanding her own chakra and those around her.

 _(It is a gift he is giving her, a wonderful and terrible gift, it will take her years to understand that she is the only one to ever have this power.)_

Sometimes only one Zetsu comes to see her, it was a shock the first time she saw them split into two separate bodies, but it turns out to be great.

On the days that it is only White Zetsu and her in the forest he teaches her more about plants, where in the body is the most delicate spots that should be protected most (or where to hit your enemy so that they go down and stay down) and how to store her chakra. She learns a lot from him and when her head is so full of knowledge that it feels like it will burst they sit down next to a stream where she talks about eating with her family or how it felt to hug her cousins because he's so clueless to things like that, so she hopes that maybe she can help in this way. On the good days she will hold his hand and tell him about her Okasan's awful singing and her Otosan's mixed scent of paper and ink.

When it's just Black Zetsu they go into a clearing and teaches her how to grow flowers bigger and faster with the aid of her growing chakra, how to grow plants from just their seeds in her palms, and how to know when a plant is at its peak to be eaten or used for medicine. In return Sakura tells him tales that her mother used to speak to her when it was time for her to sleep, all kinds of stories some with dragons and some with ninja, he always stayed quiet and still as she spoke, and it made her heart warm to know he loved these as much as she did.

Some days Zetsu is quiet so she settles herself beside him in the meadow and weaves flowers into each other to make crowns. Sometimes she hums a tune so that he knows she is there beside him, so he knows he is not alone, when she is done she puts the colourful creation onto his head and smiles down at him.

She thinks in those moments with the light filtering through the trees and the grass whispering softly around them that if she could freeze a moment and live in it forever this would be it.


End file.
